Single Stream Recycling versus Multi Stream

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Single stream recycling versus multi stream recycling
The urge to re-use most products and develop products that have less negative impacts to the environment has led to increased levels of recycling (Kinnaman & Takeuchi, 2014). Environmental conservation and the calls to have a green environment and use products that have minimal environmental impacts have led to the increased levels of recycling. Recycling is the process of collecting and converting used products to usable and quality products. If not recycled the used products could be taken as wastes that could contaminate the environment since most of them are inorganic. Recycling of products has been existent for a long time, but the eye-catching action in recycling is the evolution of the recycling systems or methodologies (Goodship, 2009).

The need to get high quality recyclable materials which are less contaminated led to municipalities developing systems that could allow the sorting of these wastes right away from the consumers of the products at their homes. This process of using multiple waste-deposition units or carbs in the places of waste collection is referred to as multi-stream recycling. Multi stream recycling is the process of recycling where the recyclable materials are placed in different carbs by the depositor and this sorting is maintained from the collection point up to processing facility (Lehmann & Crocker, 2013). This process is highly preferred by the material processors since it eliminates the initial contamination and reduces the cost of sorting out materials that can be recycled. It also involves much initial layout of the collection carbs since multiple trucks and bins are needed to ensure different wastes are placed in different deposition bins. The need to reduce the recycling costs and other costs related to recycling led to development of single-stream recycling. Single stream recycling which also referred to fully commingled or single-sort recycling is a recycling system where all recyclable materials including paper, plastics and metals together with glass are placed in a single truck at the depositor points and taken in this mixed form to the material recovery facility where now the separation is done (Worrell & Reuter, 2014). It is a different and cost effective method of recycling as compared to multi-stream recycling since all material are placed in one bin separation does not occur at the deposition point and cuts on the cost of transportation since all materials are transported to the recovery facilities via a single truck.

The choice of which process of recycling to use has brought about a major challenge to all the players involved in the recycling processes. Municipalities are the major players involved in waste collection and transport to the recycling centers. Other players are the material recovery facilities (MRF) which are involved in the sorting and identifying of the recyclable materials from the wastes collected and process them to get re-usable products (Goodship, 2009). Single stream recycling programs were first put into use by the municipalities in the state of California in early 1990s due to the need to reduc...